


And if the night comes, and the night will come, well at least the war is over

by LaVoileBlanche



Series: Outside the world seems a violent place [6]
Category: Class (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Charlie-centric, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Charlie, Panic Attack, Phone Calls & Telephones, Post-s01e08: The Lost, Spoilers, Spoilers for s01e08: The Lost, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 12:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8751907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaVoileBlanche/pseuds/LaVoileBlanche
Summary: It ends the way he thinks he knew it would, with one notable exception – he’s still alive.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Stars' "In Our Bedroom After the War".

It ends the way he thinks he knew it would, with one notable exception – he’s still alive. The world is blood and pain and chaos, April – or her body, at least – is limp and lifeless on the floor, Dorothea has vanished, the Cabinet stands empty and innocuous, but Charlie, somehow,  _ somehow _ , has survived.

He stands on shaking legs and tries to make himself walk to April’s – Corakinus’ –  _ April’s _ – side, but he can’t. Everyone is silent and staring and he’s the only one that moves, but he can't make himself go to her. It’s Corakinus who’s looking back at him, next to the body, and everything is thunderous in Charlie’s head – he should be dead. He just killed April and used the Cabinet and wiped out the last remainders of two whole species, and  _ he still isn't dead _ . For a moment, he’d been mighty and endless and made of shadow and grief, and when he’d done it, and everything else was broken, all he’d wanted was the purge, the bright burning payment for all his crimes. The release of it all, of everything. And it hadn’t come.

There’s the laborious sound of movement from his side as Quill stands slowly, clumsy with the new shape of herself.

“Get out of here,” she says, and when Charlie looks at her, she’s almost pitying. “You’re useless like this.”

His chest is feeling tight again. His heart is starting to lose its steady rhythm the same way it had in detention. He needs to listen to Quill, for once. He leaves the hall, and no-one follows him. He doesn't look at Ram or Tanya or April, can’t, just  _ can’t  _ look at Matteusz. He goes home, and makes it as far as kitchen table before his legs give out. He falls more than sits, and feels the stampeding of his heart grow and grow until it's the only thing he can hear, until his breaths grow short and gasping and the room spins. A panic attack. But Matteusz isn’t here to help him through this one, and Charlie can't find a single reason to blame him – Charlie is a monster, a killer, a nightmarish irregularity trying to carve out a life here where none should exist for him, and maybe if Matteusz realises that, he’ll be better off. If April had realised it sooner, she might still be here, because after all, if it wasn't for Charlie, the Shadowkin would never have found her at all. Ram’s dad and Tanya’s mum and Rachel would still be alive and April,  _ April,  _ who was the bravest person he’s ever known, who was the first person on the whole planet to show him kindness, his first friend, would be living her life harmless and whole. 

He doesn't know how long he sits there like that with the thoughts battering the inside of his skull, because time stops meaning anything outside of a way to measure how small the pauses are between his rattling gasps of air. It’s a grief that doesn't cool or slow or cease, the true and incontrovertible knowledge that his planet and its people are now, finally, and with no hope of revival, gone, and that he is the one who did that to them. Corakinus killed millions, but Charlie is the one who made sure they'd never come back, so which of them is worse, in the end? He stops being able to see through the tears, and it doesn't bother him. He thinks maybe if this goes on long enough, it will do what the Cabinet didn’t, but instead, after hours, maybe, he can’t tell, it starts to unwind. His chest hurts, his eyes feel raw; he has never looked less a prince in his life. He should get up, go to the bathroom, clean his face, remember how to breathe. He doesn’t.

He’s still sitting at the kitchen table when Quill comes back, and she pauses for a long moment when she sees him, like she’s going to say something, and then the moment passes. She’s almost to her room when he stops her.

“Why did you do it?” he asks. His voice feels ancient and shredded. He has been raised never to show this kind of vulnerability before his enemies, but he had taken care of her while she hibernated and she hadn’t killed him when the Ahn was gone, so he doesn't even know if the term applies anymore. He doesn’t care, either way. “Why didn’t you let it kill me?”

Quill stops, turns, looks at him. 

“Maybe I wanted to do it myself,” she says eventually. “Maybe I didn’t want you to get let off so easily.”

She’s turning the gun over in her hands, and Charlie sits back in the chair and looks at her.

“Go on, then,” he says. Maybe it really will be as easy as this. Quill studies his face for an eternity, and drops the hand holding the gun to her side.

“No,” she says, “no, Charles. You are a warrior now. You live with this.”

He can feel his eyes fill again, and he’s furious and miserable when he hears himself ask, “What if I can’t?”

“Do it anyway,” Quill tells him. “You have things to live for, Prince. As much as I hate to admit it, you’re brave enough to try.”

He doesn’t feel brave. He sniffs, takes a shaking breath, scrubs a hand over his eyes.

“How’s April?” he asks abruptly. Quill takes the subject change without a word.

“Fine, for a given value of it,” she says. “I’ve called the Doctor. Nothing to be done but wait – Ram took her home. Wouldn’t want to be there for  _ that  _ conversation.”

Charlie nods, mostly to himself. If anything can help April, the Doctor can. He wonders what it will be like, seeing him now that he’s used the Cabinet. He wonders what judgement he’ll see fit to levy for genocide,  if he was willing to abandon Quill for the death of a single human.

“Your boyfriend is fine, too,” Quill says, apropos of nothing. “He walked Tanya home.”

Charlie closes his eyes against the thought of Matteusz, for threat of the tears starting again. His chest aches from more than just the panic attack. Heartbreak is such a human concept; he didn't know it would feel so literal, but the pain is there. The feeling that his heart has shattered. He hears Quill sigh.

“Go to bed, Charles,” she says. “There’s no remedy for this, but sleep is the next closest thing. I assure you, this pain will still be here tomorrow.”

He looks at her. She’s got one hand resting over the bump in her dress, the gun hanging loosely from her fingers, and she’s looking at him not with disgust or disdain, but something else, something he hasn’t seen from her before. He pushes away from the table and stands, rubbing at his eyes once more.

“Goodnight, then,” he says. She just nods, and watches him go.

He doesn't bother getting dressed for bed, just collapses onto it, fully-clothed. He tugs off his shoes and lets them clatter to the ground, then sits up against the headboard, pointedly avoiding looking at the empty space on the desk where the Cabinet used to sit. Quill hadn’t brought it home, so he can only assume it’s still at the school. He pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps one arm around them, trying to make himself as small as possible. With his other hand, he extracts his phone from his pocket. The screen lights up on a picture of him and Matteusz, and he watches it until it goes black, then turns it on again and unlocks it. There are no new messages, no missed calls. He isn’t surprised. Of the four people who would ever want to talk to him, Tanya and Ram had wanted the Cabinet used, and though he understands their reasons better than anyone, he can’t expect them to see him the same way now he’s granted their wish. April probably doesn't want to talk to anyone, and as for Matteusz… well. Charlie knows now he isn't the hero of this story. He doesn’t get to keep the good things. 

He’s just putting his phone down on the bedside table when it buzzes with a text, and when he turns it over slowly, there’s Matteusz’s name. The message reads simply:  _ can I call you? _

Charlie types back a hesitant affirmative, because even if Matteusz is about to tell him that he never wants to see him again, he’d still rather hear his voice than anything else. When his picture appears with the call, Charlie answers on the first ring. He takes a breath to speak, but finds he doesn't know what to say. He can hear Matteusz breathing softly on the other end of the line, but the rest is silent, until,

“Charlie,” Matteusz says, and the tone of it buries Charlie, just buries him. He closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall.

“Hello,” he says. “Is Tanya alright?”

Stupid question. Of course she isn't. 

“She is with her brothers,” Matteusz replies. “I think they want to be left alone.”

“Where are you?”

“I am still at her house. The sofa turns into a bed. I'm okay.”

That he understands Charlie’s need for reassurance is piercing. His voice is as soft as anything Charlie’s ever heard. There’s silence, and then they both speak at the same time.

“Matteusz–”

“Are you–”

Quiet again.

“You go first,” says Charlie.

“Are you okay, Charlie?”

Charlie nearly laughs.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I shot April. I used the Cabinet. I didn't think I’d ever have to do either.”

“April is going to be alright,” Matteusz says. “The Doctor, the man in the blue box – he will help her.”

“It doesn't change what I did,” says Charlie.

“You thought you were doing the right thing, Charlie. It is all any of us can do.”

“I should never have come here. I should have stayed and fought and died on Rhodia. None of this would have happened without me.”

“But you would never have met me,” says Matteusz. “I would never have met you. You would change that?”

And because he is selfish, quietly, Charlie says, “No. I wouldn’t. Being with you is the only good thing I've done on this planet.”

The line falls into silence again. 

“Charlie…” Matteusz’s voice is hesitant, like he almost doesn't want to know the answer to the question he is about to ask. “Did you want to die today?”

Charlie doesn't reply for long enough that Matteusz must know the answer before he ever speaks.

“I wouldn’t have minded,” he says. “It’s what I deserve. I’d accepted it.”

Matteusz doesn’t say anything for a long, long time. Charlie is beginning to think he’s hung up when he finally speaks.

“Are you alone, now?” he asks. 

“Yes…” Charlie replies, his brow furrowing as he tries to figure out what Matteusz is up to.

“Okay. I will be there soon.”

“You’re coming here? Matteusz, what are you doing?” 

“Keeping my promise,” he says. “I will see you soon Charlie, okay?”

Charlie cannot make sense of a world that will allow him this. He has seen more of the universe than he can ever explain to someone else, but he has never met anyone like Matteusz. He loves him with an intensity that bruises.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, that series finale though...
> 
> Throughout and after his use of the Cabinet, I was really struck by the realisation that Charlie never really intended to survive the episode, and I wanted to write about that. Also, there's a healthy dose of Quill in this fic, because the episode had so many satisfying scenes developing their relationship. I'm not touching the April/Corakinus situation with a barge pole, because I don't want to be Jossed too badly, which is why references to that are fairly light. 
> 
> As always, come flail at me on Tumblr: queer-z0mbies.tumblr.com; I'm always available to cry about Class.
> 
> (If there's anything needs tagging that I haven't tagged, please let me know in the comments.)


End file.
